<< Heterosexual Play >>

The average age for beginning pre-adolescent heterosexual play is about eight years and ten months (a mean of 8.81 years) (Table 28, Figures 25, 26). This is approximately five months earlier than the average age for the beginning of homosexual play; but heterosexual activity, nonetheless, does not occupy quite as much of the attention of the preadolescent boys. It is found in 40 per cent of the pre-adolescent histories.

Just as with the homosexual, the heterosexual play begins with the exhibition of genitalia; and of those pre-adolescent boys who have any sex play with girls, about 99 per cent engage in such exhibition (Table 27). For nearly 20 per cent of the boys, this is the limit of the activity. There is considerable curiosity among children, both male and female, about the genitalia of the opposite sex, fostered, if not primarily engendered, by the social restrictions on inter-sexual display. The boy is incited by the greater care which many parents exercise in covering the genitalia of the girls in the family — a custom which reaches its extreme in some other cultures where the boys may go completely nude until adolescence, while the girls are carefully clothed at least from the ages of four or five.

Among pre-adolescent girls genital exhibition had occurred in 99 per cent of the pre-adolescent sex play. In perhaps 40 per cent of the histories that was all that was involved.
Hamilton 1929:449 found 15 of 100 females recalled exhibition of male genitalia in pre-adolescent sex play. This is only half the incidence found in our sample.

Anatomic differences are of considerable interest to most children. Their curiosity is whetted by the fact that they have in many instances been forbidden to expose their own nude bodies and have not had the opportunity to see the nude bodies of other children. Their curiosity is especially stimulated by the fact that they have been cautioned not to expose their own genitalia, or to look at the genitalia of other children. The genital explorations often amount to nothing more than comparisons of anatomy, in much the same way that children compare their hands, their noses or mouths, their hair, their clothing, or any of their other possessions. As we have noted in regard to the boy, it is probable that a good deal of the emotional content which such play may have for the small girl is not sexual as often as it is a reaction to the mysterious, to the forbidden, and to the socially dangerous performance.

On the other hand, we have the histories of females who were raised in homes that accepted nudity within the family circle, or who attended nursery schools or summer camps or engaged in other group activities where boys and girls of young, pre-adolescent ages used common toilets and freely bathed and played together without clothing. In such groups the children were still interested in examining the bodies of the other children, although they soon came to accept the nudity as commonplace and did not react as emotionally as they would have if nudity were the unusual thing.

Table 17f. Accumulative Incidence:
Females with Experience in Observing Male Genitalia
Females Who Had Observed Genitalia of:
Age Males
of any
age		 Adult
males		 Males
of any
age		 Adult
males
  Percent Cases in
total sample
5 60 17 5369 5186
7 70 20 5353 5151
9 78 24 5334 5134
11 84 30 5313 5119
13 89 37 5288 5093
15 92 45 5241 5047
20 97 69 3947 3803
25 99 88 2551 2496
30 99 94 1867 1825
35 99 95 1342 1314
40 100 96 868 836
45 100 95 525 493

A high proportion of our adult subjects rather precisely recalled the ages at which they had first seen the genitalia of the opposite sex. This emphasizes the importance which such experience has for the child in a culture which goes to such lengths as our culture does to conceal the anatomic differences between the sexes. Nevertheless, 60 per cent of our adult female subjects believed that they had first seen male genitalia at some very early age, and certainly between the ages of two and five, while another 24 per cent placed their first experience between the ages of five and eleven (Table 17f). By adolescence, about 90 per cent had seen male genitalia.


Table 18f. Source of First Opportunity to Observe Adult Male Genitalia
 Among females with any experience
Source Female’s age at First Experience  
Pre-adol. Adol.-20 21-25 26+
Percent of females
Father 46 6 1 1
Other relative 9 6 1 1
Exhibitionist 22 18 3 3
Accidental 19 17 2 4
Petting experience 1 18 19 8
Coital experience 1 26 65 73
Non-marital 1 18 23 30
Marital 0 8 42 43
Miscellaneous 2 9 9 10
Number of cases 1651 1712 561 194

Something more than a third (possibly 37 per cent) of the females in the sample recalled having seen the genitalia of adult males while they were still pre-adolescent (Table 17f). Another third had seen adult male genitalia first between adolescence and twenty years of age. The first opportunity to observe adult male genitalia in preadolescence had come, in order of frequency, from the following (Table 18f): the child’s father (46 per cent), accidental exposure by a male who was not the child’s father (19 per cent), deliberate exhibition by an adult male (22 per cent), the observation of relatives other than the father (9 per cent), the observation of the genitalia of the petting or coital partner (2 per cent), and miscellaneous sources (2 per cent). The children raised in homes of the better-educated groups had more often seen adult male genitalia at an earlier age, primarily because of the greater acceptance of nudity in homes of that level.

Of those pre-adolescent boys who have any heterosexual play, 81.4 per cent carry it to the point of manually manipulating the genitalia of the female (Table 27). For many of the youngest boys this is even more incidental than the manual manipulation which occurs in homosexual contacts.

One per cent of the adult females in the sample recalled childhood sex play with boys when they were as young as three, but 8 per cent recalled such play by five, and 18 per cent by seven years of age (Table 11f, Figure 5f). All told, some 30 per cent recalled some play with boys before they turned adolescent. The figures differed for the various educational levels represented in the sample: among those females who had never gone beyond high school, some 24 per cent recalled sex play with boys, but 30 per cent of those who had gone on into college, and 36 per cent of those who had gone still further into graduate school, recalled such pre-adolescent play.

For 52 per cent of the females who had had any pre-adolescent heterosexual play, the play had involved manual manipulations of genitalia (Table 16f). In a goodly number of instances, these had amounted to nothing more than incidental touching. The heterosexual contacts had been specifically masturbatory in only a small number of cases. There had been mouth-genital contacts among only 2 per cent of the girls, and insertions of various objects (chiefly fingers) into the female vagina in only 3 per cent of the cases.

There had been some sort of coitus in 17 per cent of the females' cases for which any heterosexual play was reported, but it has been difficult to determine how much of the “coitus” of pre-adolescence involves the actual union of genitalia. In all instances recorded in the sample, there had been some apposition of the genitalia of the two children; and since erections frequently occur among even very young boys, penetrations may have been and certainly were effected in some of the pre-adolescent activity. However, the small size of the male genitalia at that age had usually limited the depth of penetration, and much of the childhood ‘‘coitus” had amounted to nothing more than genital apposition. On the other hand, we have 29 cases of females who had had coitus as pre-adolescents with older boys or adult males with whom there had been complete genital union.
Pre-adolescent coitus is also reported in: Stekel 1895:247-248 (5 cases, ages 4-6). Forel 1905:207. Moll 1909:180; 1912:198. Stekel 1923:4; 1950:14 (pre-adolescent coitus far from rare). Schbankov acc. Weissenberg 1924a: 13. Hellmann acc. Weissenberg 1924bl212 (3 out of 338 female Russian students had coitus by age 5, and 3 per cent by age 14). Davis 1929:56 (1.4 per cent of 1000 females reported coitus in childhood). Hamilton 1929:330-332 (10 of 100 married females reported coitus before puberty; 15 per cent had refused coitus).

Among certain groups, particularly in upper social levels, the children sometimes lack information on coitus, and there may be no comprehension that there are possibilities in heterosexual activity other than those afforded by manual contacts. There are vaginal insertions which involve objects of various sorts, but most often they are finger insertions. Pre-adolescent attempts to effect genital union occur in nearly 22 per cent of all male histories, which is over half (55.3%) of the histories of the boys who have any pre-adolescent play. On this point, there are considerable differences between social levels (Table 27). Three-quarters (74.4%) of the boys who will never go beyond eighth grade try such pre-adolescent coitus, but such experience is had by only one-quarter (25.7%) of the pre-adolescent boys of the group which will ultimately go to college.

The lower level boy has considerable information and help on these matters from older boys or from adult males, and in many cases his first heterosexual contacts are with older girls who have already had experience. Consequently, in this lower level, pre-adolescent contacts often involve actual penetration and the children have what amounts to real intercourse. The efforts of the upper level boys are less often successful, in many cases amounting to little more than the apposition of genitalia. With the lower level boy, pre-adolescent coitus may occur with some frequency, and it may be had with a variety of partners. For the upper level boy, the experience often occurs only once or twice, and with a single partner or two. These differences between patterns at different social levels, even in pre-adolescence, are of the utmost significance in any consideration of a program of sex education.

Oral contacts with females occur in only 8.9 per cent of the boys who have pre-adolescent heterosexual play. Oral contacts are more likely to occur where the girl is older, or where an adult woman is involved. There is considerable evidence that oral contacts are recognized as taboo, even at pre-adolescent ages.

Pre-adolescent heterosexual play is carried over into corresponding adolescent activities in nearly two-thirds of the cases (Table 29). There is a somewhat higher carry-over of heterosexual petting, a lesser carry-over of heterosexual coitus. Again there are tremendous differences between social levels. If coitus is had by a pre-adolescent boy who will never go beyond eighth grade in school, the chances are three to one that he will continue such activity, without any major break, in his adolescent and adult years. If the boy who has pre-adolescent coitus belongs to the group that will ultimately go to college, the chances are more than four to one that the activity will not be continued in his adolescent years. Community attitudes on these matters are already exerting an influence on the preadolescent boy.

Among pre-adolescent girls the incidence of pre-adolescent heterosexual play at particular ages (the active incidence) seems to have been highest in the younger age groups. Some 8 per cent of the females in the sample recalled pre-adolescent heterosexual play at ages five and seven, but fewer recalled it for the later years of pre-adolescence. Only 3 per cent recalled that they were having heterosexual play just before adolescence (Table 14f, Figure 6f). On the contrary, among pre-adolescent boys we found that the number engaging in sex play had increased steadily throughout the pre-adolescent years. Near adolescence, some 20 per cent of the boys in the sample had been involved in heterosexual play. These differences between the incidences for boys and girls may depend in part upon the increasing restraints that are placed upon the girl as she approaches adolescence; but they undoubtedly depend to an even greater extent upon the fact that the preadolescent boy’s capacities for specifically sexual responses develop rapidly as he nears adolescence. This is not matched by any similar rise in the sexual capacities of the female at the time of adolescence.

With seven boys involved for every girl who is having any heterosexual play near the approach of adolescence, it is obvious that the girls who do accept contacts at that age must be having a variety of male partners. Not infrequently a number of boys may engage in group activities, most of which involve exhibitionistic masturbation or homosexual play, but some of which will include genital exhibitions or heterosexual contacts with one girl who is admitted to the largely male group.

For most of the females in the sample, the pre-adolescent play had been restricted to a single experience, or to a few stray experiences. Exceedingly few of the girls seem to have developed any pattern of frequent or regular activity. On the other hand, there are many reasons for believing, as we have already noted, that the extent of the pre-adolescent play was greater than these individuals recalled when they became adult.

For 67 per cent of the females in the sample the pre-adolescent heterosexual play had been restricted, as far as they could recall, to a single year, and for another 15 per cent to a couple of years. There were only 11 per cent for whom the play had extended through five or more pre-adolescent years. Of those who had had pre-adolescent coitus, 61 per cent had had it in only a single year, and another 13 per cent in two different years. Some 9 per cent, however, had had coitus for five years or more before adolescence.

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